Tuesday, 10 September 2013

APOCALYPSE!!!!!! Photos...

So the Apocalypse event at the Tredegars has come and gone, and it was a hell of a lot of fun despite a few minor obsticles! Firstly when I arrived at our venue at 7am the floor was covered in sleeping bags and half awake kids... It appears there'd been some miscommunication regarding the date! Luckily a lovely lady who was organising it said that the parents would be picking their kids up in an hour so we wouldn't be held back too long. We did have a couple of people fail to show up too which hurt one table a lot in terms of points, but both of the guys who were left seemed to have a good laugh regardless.

On our table we between 22-24k each, with the Imperial side having 2k more but the otherside had two super heavies... the Necron Obelisk, and the C'tan gargantuan creature... Uh oh! I had 8k of Krohmus Guard, and was allied with Morgans Space Wolves and Aluns pic'n'mix, which consisted of Black Templars, Eldar, Dark Eldar and Imperial Guard. Against us arrayed Chris with 5k of World Eaters and Death Guard, Liam with 8k of Night Lords, and Duane with 8k of mostly Necrons but some Tau also. We decided to speed things up by picking traits and powers, as we'd more likely remember them than looking at notes all the time. The Imperial side also won the chance to deploy and go first, and barely got everything on the board! Although, as is often the case I forgot about my scouts and Master of the Forge... Oops!

Duanes Obelisk was deployed opposite me in the centre, which I didn't mind as my Predator assassing squadron acquired it as its target. I faced mainly nightlords however and one of the best units of chosen I've ever seen... more later! The bulk of Duanes army faced Alun, and Morgan snarled his canines at the red and green of Chris' army. All that was left to do was commence play!

Tank Commander Chronus lined up his predator first at the Obelisk, and could see firepower being forced into it but most of it doing nothing. He opened up with all three lascannons ordering his comrades to do the same but they needn't have worried... Chronus' shots all hit which became a SD hit and took its 4 remaining hullpoints off. It exploded and promptly took out a wee chunk of Liams army... not much but it was something and the Obelisk couldn't now harm our sides flyers which was nice!

My Chapter Master led an assault squad across the board into combat against a nightlords squad, where he hit twice against a champion who did nothing against the great hero but I failed to wound both times due to rolling snake eyes... I think he forgot to charge the thunder hammer or stick some fresh batteries in.

My asset allowed me to allow all friendly deepstrikers to land exactly where they wanted with no scatter, with my Legion of the Damned formation coming across to the right flank to aid Aluns force and act as a road block to protect the objective there in the open. And that they did extremely well!

Brutal fights broke out across the board as the importance of controlling objectives was huge. The Space Wolf force lunged across the board eager to get to the world eaters and death guard while the right flank tentatively advanced while unloading enourmous amounts of fire at the enemy. Then fire was returned.

One of them had also taken the same asset as myself, which allowed Duane to deepstrike this monolith right in amongst mine and Alun#s army, with the gateway weapon they have facing Alun's seer council! Only three were dragged in screaming, but one was Aluns Farseer, painful loss!

On the left flank, and after my Sternguard had blown up Chris' land raider its occupants emerged from its charred heretic frame and stormed out to exact revenge, among them was Kharn. Needless to say the sternguard had no chance as they had lost their armour saves too! Typhus and 10 death guard terminators appeared too, and things looked a little dire for Morgans armu.

Heres a shot going up the board from the left flank, we played on a 12x4ft table with enough terrain to allow cover for advancing units but not too much to bog the game down. I couldn't help but pause at certain moments to just take in the scale of the game with how many models we had on the board, definately a rewarding sight!

This is how my centre was looking like around the end of turn one.

More accurate deepstiking allowed Duane to unleash an attack on the
Space Wolves which tore their armour off, leaving them with invulnerable
saves or nothing! Morgans face and poise said it all!

Heres the right flank, Legion of the Damned still holding up after being shot at and charged by Praetorians, Alun holding up well too although some Necrons flayed ones and Tau battlesuits appeared behind his lines. Hiding behind the Stormeagle was C'tan, this guy was horrid! Apoc blast and ST 10 ordnance, although it did get weaker as the blast stretched out.

Morg's Long fangs get decimated by deepstriking deathmarks, and my command squad come out to play from the land raider crusader with a librarian and two chaplains. Both those and my now free Chapter msater storm into the Wraiths where a desperate struggle carries on for 2 combat turns... my guys eventually killing the wraiths before a Tomb Stalker jumps into the fray!

Liams chosen unit, all bearing corrupted loyalist colours were stunning, although I had no qualms in trying to kill them!

Enjoying a bit of a break among the dice rolling to see how much carnage has happened... Morgan activates something where some huge castrophies happen and end up with a huge piece of space debris lands on the table. I think Morg had something against me as he ended up causeing 3 wounds on my chapter master from a rampant Vortex his rune priests had called upon! The Tomb Stalker was then able to finish him off. Gutted!

Legion of the Damned doing what the do best, getting in the way and taking an age to die! Love these guys!

More of Liams Chosen, these are stunning!

This was the casualties after a turn and a half or two of fighting... and this was just mine and Chris'!

Another shot from the left flank looking up the battlefield. My thunderhammer temries take care of some deathguard, Morgs blood claws take care of Kharn, and Arjac knocks down Oberon THREE TIMES.... more on that towards the end though! They had a brutal fight on the objective on the left.

This is looking towards my deployment, Liams upright Defiler commanding an evil presence over the proceedings. This would get blown up by my Stormtalon however! Duanes C'tan had floated across the board into our deployment, and unleashed another apoc blast that took two of my predators down hullpoint, and blew up Chronus' own tank. Several tactical members where also taken out too! My tacticla squads that had been in Rhino's had also been set upon by Chaos and Necrons, but they took down a lethal amount of scarabs and some Chaos Marines too.

The Legion slowly being whittled down but holding on to an objective. Aluns Grey Knights are able to take down the C'tan after I'd wounded it with an Orbital Strike, the resulting explosion of the energy-based C'tan taking loads of models around it. A virus outbreak happens where every unit on foot on the board suffers a S3 wound equal to how many models are in the unit... this doesn't do an awful lot but in the last turn this turns into ST 10 ap 2... and it takes a lot out including several vehicles! Many comments such as "Why are we fighting on this planet again?" were muttered and laughed about as the catastrophies tore everything apart.

Legion of the damned holding the line, although there was only a few left at the end! Due to being extremely tired I didn't take any photos at the end, but the board was pretty empty due to the ST10 ap2 strikes hitting everything, and we called it game. Oberon, who had stood up 3 times promptly finished Arjac off to claim an objective, and at the end Chaos had four and we had two... the final victory points however had shown we had 11 points, due to killing big things and claiming objectives at the first break. Also Morgan killed Kharn while in his finest hour give us more points. The end total was 11-11!

What an immense game. After all that brutal fighting it had finished a draw, and I think it was great that it did. Both sides would have struggled to field a five a side team after all the killing that had taken place, and we'd had so much fun that no matter how the points would have been we all won from it.

For me the highlights were just seeing this epic sight in front of me and holding my own. I'd forgot to use some of the new Codex rules and the Ultramarines chapter tactics I'd taken, although I don't think much difference would have been made anyway! It was great too that noone was wiped out, with us all having at least a few models left on the board at the end. The C'tan blowing up was hilarious, as was Alun failing his first shadow field save, Morg woudning my chapter master into the bargain and his space wolves losing their armour! I'm also incredibly happy with how well my Legion of the Damned did, with about 4 surviving holding the objective til the end. I love this unit! After re-writing my army list the day before taking exactly the same I'd saved about 500-600 points... the new codex is such a delight to use!

So what of the other battle? Well here it is!

Byron's huge amount of metal terminators took on Jacobs Tyranids, his Warhound was taken out on the first time and it was all downhill from there. He put up a valiant effort though and both players could be heard laughing throughout the day at Byron's predicament. Plus it looked awesome!

Jacobs Tyranids are insane, he has about 20k all painted with all these monstrosities! ~We're hoping to take some army pics soon and have them all deployed on show, I think more for Jacob to see what he has more than anything!

I'm sure I've missed a bunch of details from the day but so much happened its hard to keep track of unless everything is written down, and that would likely bog the game down. We finished on time as planned though so it all went well!

I can't wait to do another of these or another campaign day, they're both so much fun. Huge thanks to everyone that attended, especially Liam and Duane who are both from Castle Gamers in the Bridgend area of South Wales, go look them up if you're down there as they're genuine gents and great people to play against. I'll have my first battle report coming up in the week too from the new Codx, so keep your eyes peeled!